What makes your Christmas special?

What makes your Christmas special?
Here are some Christmas stories. Have you got your own to add?

In Letters from Manchuria Marion Young writes of a Christmas birth:

Faku, 25th December 1936

Christmas morning – grey, dank at 10 to 5 – I shot up in bed, wakened, I was sure by running feet outside my window … Nothing more happened and I was just dozing off when I heard Fish [the cook] dash in through the back door and down to Mamie’s room. I was out before he had her door opened and heard him say, “Gow’s wife is in the well.” [Gow was the compound caretaker.] I nabbed my flash light and rope, which I had brought for skipping, and Fish disappeared. I had bought about 30ft of rope in a hank – couldn’t get less, and thought it would come in useful for roping my boxes later – thank goodness! There wasn’t as much anywhere about the 2 compounds.

Marion and Mamie

Mamie and I pulled on knickers and Chinese gowns over our nightdresses and fled across to the other compound. The rest is a muddled picture of nightmare and comic effects. She had fallen into a well – must be over 100ft deep – 40 before you reach water, and they had thrown down the bucket to her. We heard her groaning and moaning – the mother-in-law, husband and Fish were shouting encouragements to her – I suddenly realised someone would have to go down to her – the husband was too big for the well mouth – sick feeling in my middle as I decided it must be me – but it wasn’t!

‘Fish’ the cook

Thanks be – Fish was busy getting off his gown, tying a board to the rope end, sat on it, twisted it round his shoulders, between his legs, around his waist and then we started to let him down – flash failed, candle brought, went out – Mamie and I trying to hold the girl up on well rope – Fish shouted he had her and then we started to haul – what a haul! Ivy was there by that time and she, Mamie and I hauled the well rope; two men hauled Fish’s rope – wet rope, hands blistering – God’s will, make the old rope hold! – what a weight, ice slipping under our feet –hey Ivy keep back – you’ll be in on top of them! they’re up – Hey! Stop hauling! One man at the end of Fish’s rope trying to haul both through the wee hole at once – Fish shoves her up – then is nearly drowned himself when some fool empties the whole bucket full of water on top of his face. Girl into the house – back to ours in the darkness for blankets and hot bottles, knocking up the hospital for the nurses and the drawing breaths of relief sitting round a stove in one of our bedrooms trying to sort out what happened.

She – Gow’s wife – is only a youngster – 18, and got very sick in the middle of the night – the mother-in-law, a decent old soul really, got sick of her groans and moans and told Gow to hit her – he didn’t, but said he’d go over to the hospital for medicine – he started out and the mother-in-law said something crossly and the girl, hysterical between pain and bad temper, screamed she was going to kill herself, lifted up her son under her arm and made for the well – fortunately she dropped the kid at the well mouth and jumped in herself. It is quite a small hole, a round lid on the top – Gow had just got his big compound gate open, heard the yells and came racing back – she had decided she preferred to live – Gow dropped the bucket down and got her hauled up a bit, but she dropped back – the mother-in-law held the wheel so that the rope was long enough just to keep her out of the water and Gow ran for help. It must have taken him several minutes to get anyone knocked up to open our compound gates, several more to run a 4 minute walk across our compound and get Fish knocked up – think what water 40 feet down on Christmas day here must feel like! The girl must have been 15 minutes in the water in all – and she’s alive and well.

I don’t know how the ropes held – mine was only a fairly thick skipping rope, and the well rope has been three years in and out of water and lying in the sun. I won’t forget the honour of having them almost up and wondering what under the sun we could get if either rope went and they fell in again. The comic moments – I said there were some, were provided by the mother-in-law – the moment Mamie and I appeared, “The chiaoshihs are here, what are you making that noise about?” went down the well to encourage her. Then, on a fresh outburst of howls, “What! Still shouting! Look at all the trouble you’ve made, getting the chiaoshihs out of their beds on a cold winter morning.” Fish tackling the job of getting himself ready for going down as if he were used to doing it once a week at least – hat and gown off, another small bit of rope tied into mine – that was another of my horrors, I’d seen the knot tied and I couldn’t remember whether it was near his end of the rope or ours – fortunately, we got past it in the first few feet of pulling. Then when he hauled out of the well and the cold air hit him, capering like a mountain goat and asking for his own home shouting, “Ooo! Cold! Cold!” with thirty feet of rope trailing behind him. And the final reaction as I saw Gow passing my window an hour later with the water for breakfast – thank goodness it wasn’t our well she went into!

Fish’s wife and baby son

In a second Christmas Day letter addressed only to her mother, Marion added:

Thought there was no use adding the details in a letter for general family consumption – but the ‘illness’ the young wife was suffering from was a baby! Mamie had been telling me about 2 months ago that with the birth of the girl’s first child they had a terrific time – two days labour up here and then 30 hours by cart to Tiehling where Dr Brown saved both of them by some miracle. She suffered appallingly and the thought of going through it again must have been driving her crazy …

After we had hauled her out of the well and had left her in the hands of the nurses from the hospital, I again said, “Well, if the baby lives after that, it will be a wonder!” But during breakfast the cook said, “Did you know a daughter was born to Gow’s wife half an hour after you got her out of the well?” We heard afterwards the girl hadn’t even warmed up before the child was born – just over 8 months old. New way of having twilight sleep – freeze the patient stiff! Both mother and baby in excellent health thank you!!

Perhaps a less extraordinary Christmas Day, 43 years earlier in China, is described by Constance Douthwaite in Letters from Chefoo:

Chefoo, Sunday December 31, 1893

My dearest Papa,
I think you would be interested in hearing about our Christmas day, so I will give you a little account. We all met at the [Chefoo] Girls’ School for dinner, about 45 in number and over 20 of them children. After a grand Christmas dinner it was quite a sight to see how the little folk thoroughly enjoyed the rare treat of almonds and raisins, dates, toffee, oranges, chocolate, etc. I returned home and, wrapping our little maid well up (it was a bitter day, snowing hard and fast) her father carried her over to the school, and to please the children we all had games together till it grew dusk about four o’clock. Amah held baby on her knee and both quite enjoyed the fun. Then Arthur and I retired and I dressed him up as Father Christmas, in a long scarlet dressing gown, trimmed with white wadding, and his head covered with a great white wig and flowing beard and surmounted by a crown of mistletoe. He stuck some wadding eyebrows on and was so transformed I should not have known him.

Constance and Pearl

Meanwhile they had lit up the splendid big tree which was loaded with presents and the children were all sitting, wild with excitement, waiting for Father Christmas to appear and strip the tree. Pearl sat on my knee and was so excited and delighted with all the “pitty sings” and the “lickle boys and girls” she quite forgot to be shy and frightened. I think everyone got at least half a dozen presents each and all; I had two aprons, a capital match holder, an antimacassar, one of Anna Shipton’s works, a silk tie and numbers of cards. Pearl had a little fluffy dog on wheels which barks when pinched, three dolls, two chocolate boxes, two bibs, a harmonicon, a box of bricks and bags of sweets. She trotted quite bravely up the long room when her name ‘Pearl’ was called, and returned with beaming face, hugging her presents in her arms to shew them to Mother.

Christmas at sea, described in Strangers in Chaotung by Winifred and Frank Tovey

Frank & Winnie on board TSS Empire Brent

Christmas Day, 1947, on board TSS Empire Brent:

It is a Christmas Day such as one never dreams of seeing at home. The sun is shining brilliantly and the sea is quite smooth and calm, and such a deep blue. Winnie and I are sitting out in the sun in summer attire and trying to imagine what you are all doing at home. Early this afternoon we passed Malta … At 6a.m. some brave people arose and went round singing carols. At 7 o’clock we went to a Communion Service, then we had breakfast – just an ordinary breakfast as served aboard, but a wonderful one – grapefruit, cornflakes, fish if wanted, fried egg and bacon, hot cakes and syrup to follow if tummy permitted, scones and toast and marmalade. It isn’t fair on you for us to enlarge upon the wonderful meals we are having. [Food was still rationed in England.]

After dinner, we plan to have a special little party of our own when we are going to cut the wedding cake and play party games. Last night, the ‘carol party’ sang carols on deck and the crew gave a concert. At dinner, all the children (there are 200 on board) came around and sang carols as we ate.

A White Christmas:

In Cor Blimey! Where ‘ave you come from? Winifred Tovey describes the cold winter of 1961 when the family were on furlough in Ockbrook, Derbyshire, England.

The children only knew life in Mysore, South India, where Christmas was warm and usually dry.

Our first snowman

Winnie wrote:
Snow fell that winter, causing great excitement because it was the first time that the children had seen snow. They dashed out into the back yard with their mouths open to catch the snowflakes. As usual they forgot to close the back door and Mother called out, “Close that door, anyone would think you were born in a barn!”

Keeping with the India theme, Natalie Wheatley in her book Tobacco Wife writes about Christmas 1967 in Guntur, S India.

Natalie and family were staying with the Pritchards …

We met up with Kamala, our borrowed ayah, in Guntur and the children soon took to her. Getting them to bed was not so easy.

“How is Father Christmas going to bring our stockings?” Susina was genuinely worried and Simon soon picked up that he might be missing out.

“I want Pa Kissmass! Pa Kissmass!” he jumped up and down on the springy bed, almost falling onto the polished terrazzo floor.

Looking quickly round the room, I said, “Air conditioner.”

“Con-dish-ner?” they chorused, “Where’s that?”

“Up in the wall, see,” and I pointed to the square box blowing out cool air and a soft hushy noise. “Father Christmas will come through that.”

Owl at Midnight – the story of the story

Owl at Midnight

a story of Gwenllian the lost Princess of Wales

by Patricia Lennan

ISBN: 9780993507830

The story of the story …

Pen-y-Bryn, previously known as Garth Celyn, Abergwyngregyn

When some years ago Patricia visited her uncle’s house at Abergwyngregyn and discovered that this was where the last native Princess of Wales was born, she was intrigued.

Gwenllian’s birthplace, Pen-y-Bryn

Shortly after Gwenllian was born, her father, Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, and her uncle, Dafydd, were cruelly killed by King Edward’s men, and her boy cousins, Llywelyn and Owain were incarcerated in prison for their remaining days. But the Norman king was determined be rid of any heir to the Welsh Principality, even a baby girl was a threat, and so he hunted down the infant Gwenllian and hid her away in a convent at Sempringham, Lincolnshire.

Records show that Gwenllian’s keep was paid for by the King, but she was only a baby when entering the convent and it is possible that she did not know until adulthood who she really was.

Sempringham Priory

These are the bare bones of Gwenllian’s story from which in Owl at Midnight Patricia has brought to life a young woman raised in the ways of a 13th century Gilbertine Abbey.

Building on the premise that Gwenllian was schooled by the nuns in herbal medicine of the time, Patricia opens the possibility of her having contact with the people of the fens, which feeds her interest in the world outside of the abbey and leads her to push at the boundaries that confine her.

It is known that the Welsh people raged against the ruling Norman king, and Patricia develops a parallel plot line of a secret movement working towards restoring the Principality.

If you like historical fiction, you will love this book. It is well researched, with much detail and character development that captures the daily lives of people in Medieval times during the iron rule of Edward I, also known as ‘Longshanks’, then King of England and of a reluctant Wales.

Snowdon

In Patricia’s words:
Wales has a reputation for being a land of myths and legends. She harbours magic in the hollows and hills, in secret places, the rivers and valleys echo with ancient tales. I invite you to step into its narrated history and share an adventure.

Half a century of missionaries in China

Three memoirs and autobiographies – history unaltered by retelling

Letters from Chefoo

Constance Douthwaite’s Life in China 1887-1896

by Sheila McClure

ISBN: 9781916484603

Letters from Chefoo by Sheila McClure, tells the story of Sheila’s great grandmother, Constance Douthwaite (née Groves) who, aged 20, left Bristol for Chefoo in north China as one of ‘The Hundred’ missionaries recruited by James Hudson Taylor in 1886.

Constance’s letters form the main part of the book with Sheila’s well-researched explanatory passages providing context.

In her early letters, Constance describes in detail the exciting, intriguing and alien place that China was over 130 years ago.

Arthur Douthwaite

Two years into her stay, she painfully reveals the obstacle of an engagement she had agreed to before leaving Bristol and her decision that she must travel home to break it off.

Returning to Chefoo she marries the man with whom she had fallen in love – Dr Arthur Douthwaite.

Arthur was the senior doctor and surgeon for the China Inland Mission, as well as head of Chefoo Mission with overall responsibility for the CIM missionaries and the running of the hospital and boys’ and girls’ boarding schools of Chefoo settlement. As a medical missionary’s wife, Constance had many responsibilities alongside becoming a mother and managing her household.

Constance Douthwaite with baby Isabel, autumn 1894

Photographs within the book show her as a serene young woman and in her letters she strives to paint a positive picture (it took two months or more for a letter to reach home, so there was no point in sending worrying details).

But still through her words we get a sense of the physical privations of life in Chefoo, the poor nutrition, the isolation, especially during bitter winter weather, the lack of integration between the Chinese and foreigners, the dangers of childbirth and of epidemics, in particular to babies and children, and always the constant longing for news from home.

Added to this, from 1894 to 1895 were the dangers and challenges of the First Sino-Japanese War.

Constance’s family: Edward and Isabella Groves (seated), Irene, Constance (centre) and Ernest

While Letters from Chefoo describes life in China, it also touches often on the lives of Constance’s Brethren family in Bristol, showing how tough life was all over the world in the 19th century.

Constance lived in a time before radio communications (the first ship to shore radio system developed by Guglielmo Marconi (note below) was used on the Titanic in 1911), before aviation (the first scheduled passenger airline flight on the St. Petersburg to Tampa Airboat Line was in 1914), and before antibiotics (the first antibiotic was discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1928).

Note: Marconi conducted his ship-to-shore radio transmission trials from Luttrell’s Tower, Calshot beach, as depicted in New Forest artist, Gervase Gregory’s book A Lifetime in Postcards and Maldwin Drummond’s book The Strange History of Seagulls.

Letters from Manchuria

the story of Marion Young, missionary in Japanese-occupied China

by Neil T. Sinclair

ISBN: 9780993507816

This Chinese missionary story takes place over the period of the Second Sino-Japanese War.

Letters from Manchuria was compiled by Neil T. Sinclair and his wife Helen, whose mother, Marion Young, was a missionary in China with the Irish Presbyterian mission from 1935-1941.

Marion’s residency certificate

Marion was posted to the isolated, inner Mongolian town of Faku, over 300 miles north of Chefoo, and here the Japanese were already in full occupation when Marion arrived.

Just like Constance, Marion wrote weekly letters home to her family.

Mamie Johnston in retirement, 1984

Sometimes she would enclose a photograph or a hand-drawn map, and always she showed an acute eye for detail along with a good dose of Irish wit, especially when describing adventures she had with fellow missionary Mamie Johnston (note below).

En Fu and Ping An playing in the garden

Marion describes the ‘spits and smells’ of daily life, children in happy play, her work and language study, and the shadier sides of social reality at that time – ‘Christmas morning … wakened to feet running by my window’ – the freezing cold morning when the cook’s daughter-in-law threw herself down the well.

Japanese rule became more and more oppressive during Marion’s time in Manchuria; all letters outward and all those arriving from home were read and censored, even to the point of one censor putting a note on Marion’s brother’s letter to say his handwriting was very untidy. Marion could only make veiled reference to the regular imprisonment and torture of many of the leading Chinese Christians and often she used code words; relating back to the Belfast troubles she had experienced as a child, she called Japanese spies ‘the Black and Tans’. Sometimes, possibly when the letter would be travelling home with a fellow missionary, she was clearer in her description – ‘They treat folk a bit more kindly before freeing them, to give the marks of beating or torture a chance to clear up … isn’t it a bright thought?’

Marion travelling with Wang Ssu Wen and a man to carry their luggage

Foreigners were safe, but constantly watched and asked for papers, such was the suspicion about spies within the church community. Tension rose from 1939 onwards until it seemed much of the mission work – especially the education work – would have to be given up. Marion went on leave in January 1941, just as most missionaries were either instructed or encouraged to depart. Because of the Second World War, it took Marion ten months to get home, via the United States. She left her fiancé, Rymer Cayton, behind in China, not knowing for a year and a half whether he had survived internment.

Note: Mamie Johnston wrote the small volume, I Remember It Well, about her time in China. She went to China in 1923 and stayed on until 1951. In the foreword Rev Dr Austin Fulton writes, ‘We used to say to each other: “Where Mamie is, there things happen.” The pages of this memoir strikingly illustrate this. I hope it will be widely read.’

Strangers in Chaotung

by Winifred Tovey with letters and sections by Frank Tovey
ISBN: 9780956535900

The Second Sino-Japanese War officially began in July 1937 with full-scale invasion of China, and ended in September 1945 after Japan surrendered to China and the Allied forces.

During that time, in the mountains of north Yunnan the American Red Cross built a small hospital at Chaotung (now called ‘Zhaotong’), a walled city 6,300 feet above sea level.

At the end of American presence in that part of Yunnan, the hospital was handed over to the Methodist Missionary Society (MMS) – a logical move as the MMS had sent missionaries to Chaotung since 1886 when Samuel Pollard arrived there from Devon. Pollard was a missionary for the Bible Christians, a splinter group from the Methodist Church. His story is remarkable and can be found in the book Beyond the Clouds by Elliott Kendall.

Strangers in Chaotung takes up the story from 1947 when Frank Tovey, a young houseman in Bedford County Hospital, offered his services to the Methodist Missionary Society (MMS).

When Frank qualified as a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons (FRCS) the MMS immediately posted him to China with instruction to set sail in two weeks.

Frank and Winnie’s wedding day, 11th December 1947

But he had just become engaged to Winifred Hill and knowing that the MMS rule was marriage only after a minimum of two years of service in China, they rushed to get a special license and were married six days before departing from Glasgow on the TSS Empire Brent.

Five and a half weeks later they arrived in Hong Kong, to travel onwards by train to Hankow. Having come from war-torn Britain they seemed un-phased by the disturbances and constant troop movements in China, writing home, ‘the Communist fighting in Central China has not got near Hankow so we anticipate an uneventful journey.’

After a period of language study and work in the Methodist Hankow General and Union hospitals, Frank and Winnie travelled to Kunming by Chinese Airways and onward to Chaotung in an old station wagon driven by Ken Parsons (note below), a fellow missionary who with his twin brother had been born in Chaotung in 1916.

Chaotung East Gate, 1948

As with all walled cities, the gates into Chaotung were closed at sundown against bandits and foreigners. The hospital compound was outside the city and gated too.

When Frank and Winnie arrived on foot after dark because the station wagon had broken down, they had to bang on the gate to rouse the occupants from their beds, and then in the light of a single hurricane lamp scuttle past the vicious guard dogs that were let loose in the compound after dark.

Lungste the gardener, cook, the cook’s wife and son, water carrier and housemaid

Over the following seven months, Frank and Winnie worked with the small hospital staff to treat all who came, Winnie doing the accounts and learning how to assist with x-rays and give anaesthetics.

Chaotung hospital outpatients entrance 1948

Provisions were scarce and because of galloping inflation the silver dollars, sent hidden in boxes under a lorry, to pay hospital staff had to be immediately converted into material goods to hold any value at all.

Winnie with newborn Rosemary

Ever present were the bandits and by April 1949 when a baby daughter was born to Winnie and Frank, the days and nights were punctuated by rifle fire from brigands and rebels besieging the city wall.

News came that Nanking had fallen to the Communists. The missionaries in the locality decided (against advice from MMS) to evacuate all women and children home.

They commissioned an old Dakota owned by the Lutheran Mission to carry them over the mountains to Kunming. There was no seating on the plane, no air pressure adjustment and no heating, and the passengers had to sit on the floor of the hold, while the plane lumbered its way between the high mountain peaks.

Frank and Ken stayed on, leaving Chaotung at the end of August, just four days before the Yunnan Revolution was reported.

Chaotung District People’s Hospital, 1981

To follow were three decades of Communist China, a huge country closed to the rest of the world. In 1981, after the death of Mao and fall of the ‘Gang of Four’, Frank was invited to China with Winnie for a lecture tour.

They returned to the Hankow Methodist Hospital, but did not reach Chaotung because of landslides. However they found that the Chaotung District People’s Hospital had been built on the site of the original Chaotung Mission Hospital and was catering for 280,000 outpatients and 13,000 inpatients a year.

Note: Ken Parsons’ twin brother, Keith, has written a book, Our Providential Way, about the lives of their parents, Annie and Harry Parsons, who were missionaries from 1903 to 1926 at Stone Gateway (Shih Men Kan), a settlement built by the early Bible Christian missionaries one day’s mule ride from Chaotung. This book will soon be published by Little Knoll Press.

Narnia the real place

Did you know Narnia is a real place in central Italy?

Very few people know that the real place, Narni, in Umbria, Italy, provided inspiration for C S Lewis’s most famous book.

How did this happen?
View the video by Dave Knowles to learn about the history of Narni and why C S Lewis chose this special hilltop town for The Chronicles of Narnia. See the tallest man-made waterfall in the world and learn why they were created by the Romans. Also find out about The Rocca, the castle overlooking Narni that was so important to the Roman Catholic church. Perhaps C S Lewis found a link to the character of Lucy from the story of St Lucia who was born in Narni and at the age of five saw the Virgin Mary and the baby Jesus. St Lucia’s body lies today in a glass coffin in the Cathedral St. Giovanale.

View the video

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(The link below will take you to purchase a beautifully illustrated hardback copy of The Chronicles of Narnia.)

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Where Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein

12 New Bond Street, Bath, in 2019.

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My daughter, Beth, took this photo earlier this year on a visit to Bath.

This shop used to be TOVEY OPTHALMIC OPTICIAN, the business started in 1888 by my great grandfather, Frank Ivor Tovey. Great grandfather and his family lived above the shop and I was told that my grandmother was born in those rooms.

The shop front seen in these photos was newly installed by my great grandfather in 1906, designed by Alfred J. Taylor.

Tovey Opticians – photo circe 1961.

The current shopkeepers told Beth that Mary Shelley had lived there.

This was a surprise to me, but a little bit of research reveals that it is true. The rooms above the shop were rented by Percy Shelley and occupied by Mary’s step sister, Claire Clairmont, Mary and Shelley’s son, William, and his nurse, and Mary used this address, 12 New Bond Street, for her correspondence during that period from autumn 1816 to January 1817, although she also had other rooms in a boarding house near the Pump Room and Roman baths.

Mary Shelley

It was a dark time for Mary; Shelley was hardly ever there, and Mary and Claire were keeping out of the public eye because Claire was pregnant with Lord Byron’s child.

In addition, Mary and Percy Shelley’s first baby, Clara, had recently died in infancy while they were abroad and Byron’s relationship with Claire had gone sour. Shelley had run out of funds to support himself, Mary and Claire on their travels and they had returned to England on a low with winter coming. Mary felt deeply the rift with her father, but she determined to write the novel that she had started after a nightmare vision during their stay with Byron.

The 1918 cover.

As if things couldn’t get worse, tragedy came with the suicides of Mary’s half sister, Fanny, and of Shelley’s wife, Harriet. It is hard to imagine how wretched life must have seemed on a dark, wet, winter day.

Out of all this came Mary’s ground breaking novel, Frankenstein.

(There are links to buy the books, Mary Shelley by Miranda Seymour, and Frankenstein, below.)

My mother, Winifred Tovey, wrote about her first visit to Tovey Opticians in her book, Strangers in Chaotung …

‘Frank’s grandfather, Frank Ivor Tovey, was descended from a family of watch and clock makers. He had qualified as an optician and set up the business in New Bond Street, Bath. It was here that Frank’s father, Ernest Tovey worked. Ernest trained as an optician when courting Nellie and had to change his name from Short to Tovey by deed poll when he married her, the eldest of the three Tovey daughters.

Frank’s auntie, Irene Tovey, also worked at the shop in Bath. She was the middle sister to Nellie and May and the first woman to qualify as an optician in England, for which she was awarded the Freedom of London.

During the weekend I spent a fascinating afternoon in the shop. I met all the staff members and then was taken upstairs into the workshop where spectacles were prepared for individual customers. At that time, 1947, spectacle lenses were made of glass and arrived in squares. First of all the lens had to be centred. If they were cylindrical the axis was marked with a blue pencil, then the lenses were cut, using a template, and bevelled to fit the spectacle frame. If bifocal correction was required, this was added as a segment, which was stuck onto the lower part of the lens. It needed great skill and care to obtain a good result. I found it fascinating.

Frank, of course, knew all about my background and had visited our house frequently, but I was slightly worried about what his family expected of me because of my working class background. Quietly, I was overwhelmed. Despite the fact that in view of our family circumstances I had successfully worked my way through to obtain a responsible post with a good salary, I did wonder whether Frank’s father would be happy to accept me as a suitable partner for his son.’

Jack Hargreaves – Dave and Steve recall working on ‘Out of Town’ and ‘Old Country’

A new video about Jack Hargreaves is on its way.

This week Dave Knowles and Steve Wagstaff met in Jack’s barn in Dorset to talk about working with Jack on his Southern Television series Out of Town and the further series Old Country.

Standing in the barn where Jack had recorded the links for the last series of Out of Town programmes* brought back lots of memories to their recorded conversation. (These were made using film originally shot but unused in Southern Television’s broadcast Out of Town*.)

I met Jack quite a few times when he was working with Dave and Steve, and I edited and published the book Jack’s Country, so I had read about his early life, his time during WW2 and his part in early broadcast radio and television, but I didn’t know many of the things that they recalled. Jack had an easy way about him and a keen interest in life so he appeared much younger than he was. It was a surprise when I edited the book to find he was born in 1911. Perhaps a beard disguises the age of a man – I found out Jack’s thought on this from Dave and Steve’s discussion!

Jack Hargreaves was a complex and knowledgeable man; most importantly he was a good communicator who could bring magic to tales about everyday country stories.

To see a little trailer about the video to come – click on this photo

Equestrian Artist’s Inspiration

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An inspiring visit

to the

Russell-Cotes

Art Gallery & Museum

Bournemouth

Alan Langford contemplates ‘The Gypsy Horse Drovers’ by Lucy Kemp-Welch

It is a rare treat to visit the work that has inspired a painter, and in the company of that painter.

Alan Langford, equestrian artist and highly skilled graphic artist, invited a group of friends and fellow artists to visit the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery with him to see the large oil, ‘The Gypsy Horse Drovers’ by Lucy Kemp-Welch, painted in 1894 when Lucy was a student under Herbert Von Herkomer RA.

Lucy Kemp-Welch sketching The Gypsy Drovers on her paint box lid – Illustration by Alan Langford in his book ‘WELGORA‘

In his book WELGORA Alan wrote about the day when Lucy was inspired to do this painting:

‘The idea for this painting occurred to her when she saw the approach of a number of heavy-hoofed cobs, driven by tough-looking Romany riders along a muddy country lane, under a grey wintry sky. Rushing from her lodgings with palette and brushes in hand, and the lid of her paint box to serve as a paint board, she executed a swift and skillful composition as this irregular, rampant procession proceeded before her.’

One of the group inspecting the small head of a horse by Lucy Kemp-Welch. (On the other side of this picture is mounted Lucy’s paint box lid with the sketch for ‘The Gypsy Horse Drovers’)

The curator of the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery showed us the actual sketch on the paint box lid.

This stunning little oil sketch is a very special art work in itself, portraying movement and detail in a few quick strokes of the brush, with the texture of the rough wood adding a further dimension.

The paint box lid with Lucy’s quick painted sketch of the Gypsy Horse Drovers mentioned is displayed on the reverse of the picture of a horse’s head shown in this photo, also by Lucy Kemp-Welch.

I wasn’t quick enough to get a photo of the box lid, but … what better excuse to go to the art gallery and see it for yourself?

Part of the scene depicted in ‘The Gypsy Horse Drovers’ by Lucy Kemp-Welch

Lucy went on to paint ‘The Gypsy Horse Drovers’ on an 8 foot long canvas – an enormous project for a diminutive young woman (she was in her early twenties) and in that Victorian time.

Alan explains in his book WELGORA how with trepidation Lucy presented the unfinished painting to be viewed by Herkomer, a man not averse to putting a huge black cross of paint across a student’s work if it was not to his approval!

But as Alan writes: ‘Herkomer was so impressed by ‘The Gypsy Horse Drovers’ that he recommended that Lucy submit it for the next Royal Academy Exhibition.

This she did, and it was hung in a good position just above the line and was quickly purchased by Sir Frederic Harris for £60.00.

At that time £60.00 represented a significant sum; Lucy would have been overjoyed.’

Barry Miles and Peter Frost discuss ‘Gypsy Horses’ by Lucy Kemp-Welch

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This was just the beginning of Lucy’s career, which included illustrating the children’s book, Black Beauty.

(There are links below to buy a beautiful edition of the book Black Beauty illustrated by Lucy Kemp-Welch and prints of the illustrations.)

Her large oil ‘Gypsy Horses’, also in the Russell-Cotes Gallery, is shown in this photo being admired by Barry Miles, author and watercolour artist, and Peter Frost, painter, professional printer and retired New Forest Verderer.

There is something different to see at every turn in the Russell-Cotes Gallery – paintings, marble busts, Japanese incense burners, memorabilia, painted ceilings, stained glass, mosaic work and bronzes, all collected by the Russell-Cotes over the years from 1880 to 1901. Once after a trip to Japan, they travelled back with over 100 packing cases full of art and collectables!

The museum and gallery building, East Cliff Hall, was gloriously designed to the directions of Merton Russell-Cotes, as a gift to his wife. Its late Victorian style mixes Moorish, Japanese and French influences, making for exotic and indulgent surroundings.

It’s easy to find a piece to sit in front of and savour, and it’s also easy to miss a dozen others, but this makes it worth visiting again and again.

Near life size boy in Parian ware

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Apart from the paintings, the artwork that particularly took my eye on this visit was a glazed Parian ware figure of a boy, dressed in lederhosen and Tyrolean hat.

I used to make ceramic models of people and the largest I made was quite a challenge at about 12 inches tall.

This nearly life size figure was used for advertising in a dairy shop in Austria.

How did the artist make such a perfectly detailed piece of such size and how was it transported from pottery to shop, and then from country to country to arrive at the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery?

A part of the painting ‘The Little Beggar’ by Laura Knight

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I was also intrigued by the story of Laura Knight, who in the early 1930s used to drive out to gypsy encampments and set up her ‘studio’ in the back of her Rolls-Royce.

Here you can see only a part of her large canvas ‘The Little Beggar’.

Laura Knight’s most notable work is ‘The Nuremberg Trial‘. This thought-provoking painting is at The Imperial War Museum, London.

This only touches on the artwork at the gallery and museum.

Next time you’re in Bournemouth, why not get away from the beach and walk up East Cliff to the art gallery and museum. It will be well worth it!

Where disability is no bar – Maria Giulia Cotini

In the town of Narni, Italy, lives the author, Maria Giulia Cotini, who this summer was directing I Ragazzi Pon Pon (The Cheerleaders) in their performance of her play Giullarino Mingherlino (The Skinny Jester).

This was part of the children’s holiday activities, where they got together to learn more about their town’s history and link it with places around the world.

Maria Giulia Cotini directs the play, Guillarino Mingherlino

Maria Giulia is also the author of the book, Shotaro – the child who wanted to become a Samurai.

Anthony Ridgway, author of the WIZZY books

Just like Little Knoll Press author, Anthony Ridgway, Maria Giulia has been disabled from birth, but for both of them this has been no bar to imagination and achievement.

Shotaro is written in Italian and is available as a hardback book (ISBN: 9788804674610) and e-book.

Here is a translation of the blurb:

‘Shotaro is intelligent and stubborn, and he refuses to accept that his greatest dream (to become a Samurai like his father) is unattainable. Shotaro is disabled from birth and his father decided he would become a monk.

The rōnin, Kenya, arrives at the monastery and declares he is willing to train even him.

But when the terrible Daimyō destroy Shotaro’s home village and his father disappears, Shotaro’s life is turned upside down and everything seems lost.

In ancient Japan, a country marred by war and corruption, Shotaro is able to demonstrate, with courage and determination, that you don’t need a perfect body to make a man into a warrior.’

And here is some more about Maria Giulia:

Maria Giulia Cotini was born in 1980; disabled from birth, she does not walk and has problems with her hands, sight and hearing.

Maria Giulia has been in love with the martial arts since a child, and at the age of ten she was the first child with a disability to practice karate in the gym with the able-bodied.

Working on her knees, she adapted the techniques up to competition standards, which was previously considered impossible.

Always passionate about myths and legends, Maria Giulia graduated with honours in History of Religions.

You can see Maria Giulia at a Karate event by clicking on her picture here –

How Sweetwings saved the Fleet

Sweetwings saves the Fleet

This little gunboat spotted on a recent visit to Portsmouth Historic Dockyard reminded me of a story in Maldwin Drummond’s children’s book

The Strange History of Seagulls

ISBN: 9780993507809

Watercolour by Maldwin Drummond

Now Maldwin knew his boats (he was a sailor all his life and was involved in the raising of the Mary Rose, as well as a supporter of the Museum of the Royal Navy), and I thought the boat in my photo looked like the MTB (Motor Torpedo Boat) in his illustration where ‘Sweetwings’, the seagull, gives the electrician early warning of a floating minefield.

However, on comparing my photo with Maldwin’s boat, the tell-tale funnel on the boat in Portsmouth led me to believe it is not an MTB, but an SGB (Steam Gun Boat) also used in WW2.

On page 25 of The Strange History of Seagulls we find out how Sweetwings saved the fleet.

It was lucky that he was so observant!

The Strange History of Seagulls is a fun way to learn about the history of the Solent and Waterside area. It is illustrated throughout with Maldwin Drummond’s unique watercolours.

Find the book by clicking this link

(The links below are to two other books by Maldwin Drummond. The Riddle was released around the same time as The Strange History of Seagulls and After You, Mr Lear: In the wake of Edward Lear in Italy is packed with Maldwin’s quiet humour. )